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Freshly Exhumed writes "Forked from Mandriva Linux back in 2010, Mageia Linux has hit a new release milestone. Trish at the Mageia blog announces: 'All grown up and ready to go dancing: Mageia 3's out! We still can't believe how much fun it is to make Mageia together, and we've been doing it for two and a half years. For people who can't wait, get it here; release notes are here. To upgrade from Mageia 2, see here.'" Adds reader hduff: "It offers cutting edge and stable versions of your favorite applications and desktop environments as well as a version of the STEAM gaming software."

Forking a distro usually happens when one of the people working on it doesn't feel they are "in charge" enough, and they want to be "the boss," so they go off and create "their own" little fiefdom to rule over.

The key question here is "what is the point?" If there is a point, then that point is the answer. If there isn't a point. Then indeed the distro is nothing but another point in the charts of desktop Linux fragmentation. It is bad for desktop Linux as a whole, it makes Linux less attractive as a platform.

On the other hand desktop Linux is so fragmented already that it's nothing serious, and the Mageia are having so much fun by their own admition, that Mageia turns out to be a positive thing overall.

Now if the Mageia guys could have fun making a better interface for the GIMP or optimizing LibreOffice, that would be much better for desktop Linux. But you can't choose what makes you have fun.